Red Cross targets emotional impact of climate change
Sharon Cohen Newtown, Connecticut, United States Red Cross volunteer comforts a survivor of a California fire with fatalities. Photograph by Andrea Booher, FEMA FEMA library–Public Domain Natural disasters are growing in frequency and intensity worldwide. Mother Nature demonstrated her devastating fury in over 300 global events of intense wind, rain, floods, and fire in […]
Training wheels
Shannon Kernaghan Alberta, Canada Image designed by Kraven Cache. All rights belong to artist Kraven Cache. Permission to use this illustration is granted January 8, 2020. From the beginning of Paul’s dance with doctors, I have sat next to him and squeezed his hand through the pronouncement of hemochromatosis. The first doctor said his […]
The history and significance of voluntary, non-remunerated blood donation
Hans Erik Heier Oslo, Norway Fig. 1. Poster for recruitment of blood donors in Bristol, UK, in 1944. “While we have now begun to understand the cost of everything, we are in danger of losing track of the value of anything” (Ann Oakley and John Ashton, 1993) Volutary, non-remunerated blood donation in catastrophe […]
What did Dorothy Reed See?
Sara Nassar Cairo, Egypt Dorothy Mabel Reed Mendenhall (Photograph by A. Pearsall, courtesy of Alan Mason Chesney Archives of John Hopkins Medical School). “They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.”1 – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet. Dorothy Mabel Reed Mendenhall opened the doors of medicine at […]
From eponym to advocate: the story of Stephen Christmas
Peter Kopplin Toronto, Canada Picture of Stephen Christmas. Courtesy of Robin Christmas The 1952 Christmas issue of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) had an unusual but fitting article. It was titled “Christmas Disease, a condition previously mistaken for haemophilia.”1 The seminal patient was five-year-old Stephen Christmas and the title suggested an unusual lack of […]
Notes from writing a character with a bleeding disorder
Nicole Hebdon Buffalo, New York, United States “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” –Ernest Hemingway. Photograph by Suzy Hazelwood. Taken from pexels.com I have read two books that feature characters with bleeding disorders. The first was a used paperback with a neon green and […]
A history of blood transfusion: a confluence of science—in peace, in war, and in the laboratory
Kevin R. Loughlin Boston, Massachusetts Figure 1- Blood Transfusions -WWI East Sussex. Photo from Wellcome Images. Accessed 10/15/2019. The rudimentary lights provided only dim illumination of the operative field. The three British army surgeons worked feverishly to save the life of the young soldier, Corporal Smith, who had a significant liver injury. He had […]
The Red Cross and hematology pioneers
Barnabas Pastory Dar es Salaam, Tanzania The Red Cross and the Red Crescent emblems at the museum in Geneva. Photo by Julius.kusuma. Accessed via Wikimedia Commons. Providing medical care to suffering humankind constitutes an important part of the Red Cross’ service scope. History records an important connection between the Red Cross and pioneers in […]
Blood and war: Preserving plasma and humanity
Navanjana Siriwardane Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada “Charles Drew with Laboratory Apparatus – Charles R. Drew – Profiles in Science.” U.S. National Library of Medicine. National Institutes of Health. Accessed January 4, 2020. Amidst the fighting and chaotic nature of World War II, the need for proper blood banking was greater than ever. Millions […]
The sight of blood
Joanne Jacobson New York, New York, United States Human plasma protein solution in bottle, Hertfordshire, Engl. Credit: Science Museum, London. CC BY None of us live to adulthood without seeing our own blood—growing up, I witnessed my blood flow free of my body too many times to count. The bleeding knee picked clean of leaves and […]